


til our temporary brilliance turns to ash

by ravens_tell_stories



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Shifting Lines - DovahTobi
Genre: Angst, Gen, Not A Happy Ending, SO, but i made myself sad, i actually kind of hate this but thats fine, i tried to write angst and idk if it worked very well, imo its really shitty but whatever, inspired by the server, shifting lines, um Idk how to tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:13:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25949410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ravens_tell_stories/pseuds/ravens_tell_stories
Summary: Sirius is burning up inside with the desire to stay. To stay right here, in this exact moment, forever. He wants to sit with the snow at his back and the stars in front of his eyes and his friends by his side until the world calms down. Until things are okay again, and they can face everything together.He wants to stay here, where he’s safe, until he can be safe everywhere else.~~the shortest and arguably shittiest thing i've ever written but it made me cry so here have it
Relationships: Sirius Black & Remus Lupin & Peter Pettigrew & James Potter
Comments: 8
Kudos: 6





	til our temporary brilliance turns to ash

**Author's Note:**

> WOW i kind of really hate this but um whatever. inspired by a thing i posted on the Shifting Lines discord (come join us! its chaotic and fun!)
> 
> um idk i hope you enjoy? this is mostly for like book and em and all yall weirdos who love angst so much. i hope its not too terrible.
> 
> (let me know if you can guess the song that the title is from!) okay enjoy this monstrosity!!

They’d spent all weekend in the snow. Remus was at his most energized, only a week after the moon, and they were taking advantage of his rare enthusiasm. On Saturday they built snowmen, like they had in first year, and then had a snowball fight with some of the girls. Sunday they built tall walls of snow and made a fort, from which they threw more snowballs at other students.

After dinner they sneak back out and lie inside the fort, heads in a circle staring up at the stars. The clouds have rolled off since the snow fell, so it’s clear and dark enough that the sky is like a canvas splattered with pinpricks of light.

Sirius lets his eyes fall shut, then snaps them open. He focuses clearly, intently, on memorizing everything about this moment. He takes in the position of the stars, the quiet rhythm of his friends’ breathing around him, the chill of the snow seeping through his robes onto his back. He repeats every word Remus and James and Peter say like a mantra until he’s certain he’ll remember it all in the morning. He stares up at the sky until his vision starts to blur and his eyes start to burn from keeping them open so long. And then he rolls onto his stomach, lets his shoulder brush against Remus’, and observes his friends.

He watches the way Peter glances over at James every few seconds, as if checking that he’s still there. He watches the way James’ shoulders slowly relax, the way Remus’ eyes dart around the sky restlessly. The way the wind ruffles everyone’s hair, the way they all start to shake with barely-suppressed shivers.

Finally, when even Remus is cold enough to notice, they rise shakily to their feet.

Sirius is burning up inside with the desire to stay. To stay right here, in this exact moment, forever. He wants to sit with the snow at his back and the stars in front of his eyes and his friends by his side until the world calms down. Until things are okay again, and they can face everything together.

He wants to stay here, where he’s safe, until he can be safe everywhere else.

“Oi!” James hisses, a few steps ahead. “Keep up, mate!”

Sirius almost stumbles in his scramble to rejoin the other boys.

It’s only a few weeks later when he lets the biting, bitter cold of that winter night fill his memories. Lets the soft laughter of his friends take him back to that moment, sweep him away in how much it feels like  _ home _ . He almost forgets to whisper the incantation.

He opens his eyes in time to see a giant, pale blue wolf burst from the tip of his wand. It circles the room once, lets out a loud howl, then turns golden-amber eyes on Sirius before vanishing into thin air.

“Shit,” he murmurs.

Seven years after that, he’s huddled in the very corner of a small stone cell. A dark, looming figure glides past the iron bars, and Sirius shivers violently as a sudden cold creeps into his bones. He feels his thoughts twisting, memories swirling to the surface and making him whimper and curl tighter into himself.

“No, no, no, no, no,” he whispers as an all-too-familiar scene begins to play out behind his eyelids. “Please, no. Not this one,  _ please _ \--”

It’s no use. His vision is already rolling, focusing on Remus (his heart rate quickens at the sight) and James (he can almost feel a piece of his soul chip away at the sight) and finally Peter.

His blood boils at the grin the mousy boy is sporting, at the way he fits in with the others so seamlessly - at the way Sirius  _ aches _ for things to still be the same as they had been.

And that’s the real reason he’s shown memories like this so often; not because it hurts to see James smiling, not because it makes him angry to see Peter sitting beside the man he will eventually betray, but because he wishes, more than anything else in the entire fucking world, that he could have found a way to stand still in that moment.

He wishes he could have stayed.

“I’m sorry,” he rasps out to an empty room. “I’m so sorry, Pete. Rem. J-James. I…”

Sirius closes his eyes, drags a hand through his ragged hair. He pictures the way the stars shone in Remus’ eyes and glinted off the edge of Peter’s camera and sparkled in the lenses of James’ glasses. He lets out a watery, shattered sigh.

“I’m so sorry, lads. I miss you.”


End file.
